ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a highly distinctive two-circle, Persian-Iranian, ethnopolitical identity has existed almost continuously not merely for the last century or two but, rather, for two and a half millennia, since the first unification of the Iranian plateau under the Achaemenids in the sixth century bce. Benedict Anderson's emphasis on literacy and print technology has been much exaggerated, because illiterate societies had their own potent means of wide-scale cultural transmission. Achaemenid King Cyrus and his successors further expanded the Achaemenid Empire, which extended from the gates of India to Egypt and the Aegean. With its semi-arid, sparsely populated landscape and largely pastoralist economy, Iran was dominated by the horseman throughout its history. This increased the power of the semi-feudal aristocracy that dominated all the Iranian states successively from Median and Achaemenid times up until the twentieth century. Elie Kedourie's mistake with respect to nationalism in Asia derived from his natural but misleading focus on the Ottoman Middle East.
